GOP SENATE MAJORITY: Sen. Mitch McConnell greeted students in the McConnell Scholars Program after holding a news conference in Kentucky to discuss plans for the U.S. Senate if he’s elected majority leader.
Win McNamee
Getty Images

GOP SENATE MAJORITY: Sen. Mitch McConnell greeted students in the McConnell Scholars Program after holding a news conference in Kentucky to discuss plans for the U.S. Senate if he’s elected majority leader.
Win McNamee
Getty Images

Boehner, Mitchell vow to get things done in new Congress

Americans have entrusted Republicans with control of both the House and Senate. We are humbled by this opportunity to help struggling middle-class Americans who are clearly frustrated by an increasing lack of opportunity, the stagnation of wages, and a government that seems incapable of performing even basic tasks.

Looking ahead to the next Congress, we will honor the voters’ trust by focusing, first, on jobs and the economy. Among other things, that means a renewed effort to debate and vote on the many bills that passed the Republican-led House in recent years with bipartisan support, but were never even brought to a vote by the Democratic Senate majority. It also means renewing our commitment to repeal ObamaCare, which is hurting the job market along with Americans’ health care.

For years, the House did its job and produced a steady stream of bills that would remove barriers to job creation and lower energy costs for families. Many passed with bipartisan support — only to gather dust in a Democratic-controlled Senate that kept them from ever reaching the president’s desk. Senate Republicans also offered legislation that was denied consideration despite bipartisan support and benefits for American families and jobs.

These bills provide an obvious and potentially bipartisan starting point for the new Congress — and, for President Obama, a chance to begin the final years of his presidency by taking some steps toward a stronger economy.

Never miss a local story.

Sign up today for a free 30 day free trial of unlimited digital access.

We’ll also consider legislation to help protect and expand America’s emerging energy boom and to support innovative charter schools around the country. These bills include measures authorizing the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, which will mean lower energy costs for families and more jobs for American workers; the Hire More Heroes Act, legislation encouraging employers to hire more of our nation’s veterans; and a proposal to restore the traditional 40-hour definition of full-time employment, removing an arbitrary and destructive government barrier to more hours and better pay created by the Affordable Care Act of 2010.

Enacting such measures early in the new session will signal that the logjam in Washington has been broken, and help to establish a foundation of certainty and stability that both parties can build upon.

At a time of growing anxiety for the American people, with household incomes stubbornly flat and the nation facing rising threats on multiple fronts, this is vital work.

Will these bills single-handedly turn around the economy? No. But taking up bipartisan bills aimed at helping the economy that have already passed the House is a sensible and obvious first step.

More good ideas aimed at helping the American middle class will follow. And as we work to persuade others of their merit, we won’t repeat the mistakes made when a different majority ran Congress in the first years of Barack Obama’s presidency, attempting to reshape large chunks of the nation’s economy with massive bills that few Americans have read and fewer understand.

Instead, we will restore an era in which committees in both the House and Senate conduct meaningful oversight of federal agencies and develop and debate legislation; and where members of the minority party in both chambers are given the opportunity to participate in the process of governing. We will oversee a legislature in which “bigger” isn’t automatically equated with “better” when it comes to writing and passing bills.

Our priorities in the 114th Congress will be your priorities. That means addressing head-on many of the most pressing challenges facing the country, including:

▪ The insanely complex tax code that is driving American jobs overseas;

▪ Health costs that continue to rise under a hopelessly flawed law that Americans have never supported;

▪ A savage global terrorist threat that seeks to wage war on every American;

▪ An education system that denies choice to parents and denies a good education to too many children;

▪ Excessive regulations and frivolous lawsuits that are driving up costs for families and preventing the economy from growing;

▪ An antiquated government bureaucracy ill-equipped to serve a citizenry facing 21st-century challenges, from disease control to caring for veterans;

▪ A national debt that has Americans stealing from their children and grandchildren, robbing them of benefits that they will never see and leaving them with burdens that will be nearly impossible to repay.

January will bring the opportunity to begin anew. Republicans will return the focus to the issues at the top of your priority list. Your concerns will be our concerns. That’s our pledge.

The skeptics say nothing will be accomplished in the next two years. As elected servants of the people, we will make it our job to prove the skeptics wrong.

John Boehner, R-Ohio, is the House speaker; Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is currently the Senate minority leader.